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HighFidelityGuy
26-04-2009, 20:50
Hi,

I recently noticed that I get a better quality sound directly from my Beresford 7520 DAC when using it as a pre-amp than I do when using my Arcam AV amp as a pre-amp. I have a pair of Musical Fidelity monoblocks by the way.

Bare with me the turntable part is coming...

So to try and get the best sound quality out of my DAC I'm thinking about trying to separate my stereo must gear from my AV gear as much as possible. I could just use my DAC as a pre-amp but it doesn't have remote volume control, so that kills it for me. So my current idea is to get a pre-amp to go after the DAC to give me remote volume control. I would then connect the front channel pre-out from my AV amp to the same pre-amp to make everything work together. Another thing I want to add to my system at a later date is a turntable, so I thought I may as well get a pre-amp that has a phono stage built in.

So I need a phono stage pre-amp that has at least 2 line level inputs and a MC/MM phono input. If possible it would be great if it had pass-through connection so that the connection from my AV amp didn't go through the volume control.

I'd want this device to affect the sound quality as little as possible and as a bonus I'd like it to be silver if possible. It would also need to be suitable for a wide range of turntables as I don't have one yet and must sound good with a TT. That's the reason I posted this here as I know finding a pre-amp with a good phono stage can be tricky. Especially for someone like me that knows very little about phono stages.

I'd consider valve or solid state technology, new or 2nd hand.

So does any one know of a product that would fit this description?
I'm not sure how much I'd need to spend to get something like this but I doubt I could go much above £400 unless it could get me the perfect solution.

Thanks.

HighFidelityGuy
27-04-2009, 16:38
I think I've found a pre-amp that fulfils all my requirements, it's the Musical Fidelity A5cr. Unfortunately they seem to be a bit tricky to get hold of as they are out of production.

Also the MF website seems to have disappeared plus lot's of MF stuff seems to have been on sale recently. Have they gone bust or something? :confused:

Anyway, I'd love to get some more suggestions if anyone knows of any other suitable pre-amps.

Spectral Morn
27-04-2009, 22:32
No, still around http://www.musicalfidelity.com/. Their server/host must have had a problem.



Regards D S D L

HighFidelityGuy
28-04-2009, 08:38
I managed to finally get on their website last night but now it seems to be down again. I think they need to change hosts as the current one appears to be using servers held together with bits of string.

Anyway, I think I've hit the mother load. :eyebrows: I stumbled across a forum that had a massive list of pre-amps with the home theatre bypass feature that I need. So I just need to trawl through the list and find the ones that have phono stages, then I can start narrowing it down.

I'll post my findings here as I think this could come in handy for others.